So what are Skitters anyway? Falling Skies producer finally explains

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The second season of TNT's hit alien invasion series Falling Skies ended Sunday with a tense, action-packed finale. But one of the biggest reveals came afterward, in a follow-up interview with the showrunner. What are the Skitters? Producer Remi Aubuchon explains.

Skitters, which are the ground troops and most common aliens in the series, are creepy, crawly critters that the 2nd Mass spends most of its time dealing with on a day-to-day basis.

But a big mystery set up in season one showed that the skitters were once harnessed with the same devices the aliens are using on human kids. So it got fans wondering—did the harness turn them into the spider-like creatures, or were they already like that and the harness just made them slaves?

According to Aubuchon, who took over as showrunner for season two, the reveal was never meant to imply that the harness turns kids into alien spiders—though the devices do cause some other problems:

"Oh, we should definitely be worried about the harnessed kids. The rule that [producer] Steven [Spielberg] insisted on right from the beginning and I embraced and followed is that we don't learn any more about the aliens or the mythology than our characters learn. We learn them as the characters learn them. I'll break that rule for five seconds because I know there's been a lot of speculation about this on boards and stuff. Our take is that, no, that's what the skitters looked like. They were six-legged creatures on their planet, and basically they looked like that. What the harness does—it does a lot of things—but one of the side effects of it is that it creates a sort of exoskeleton around the creature itself, and you can see that happening to our human kids. In fact, our nickname for them in the writers room is "crusty kids."

So there you have it. Earth kids may not grow any more legs, but they're definitely starting to change, as has been hinted over the past season. But will we ever get to see a fully transformed human? Probably, and it could come as soon as season three (which starts shooting this month):

"[W]e will actually probably be seeing the full result of what the harness has done to our children, which is devastating and horrific."